Daley Warns Gop Not To Shut Him Out Of School Legislation

Mayor Richard Daley on Friday said he was "disturbed" by several aspects of a plan proposed by the Republican-led General Assembly to overhaul the Chicago Public Schools.

He also warned legislators not to try to "ramrod" the proposed legislation into law without his advice and said he would be in Springfield Tuesday to meet with GOP leaders. Earlier this week, Daley canceled a trip to the state capital because high-ranking Republicans and Gov. Jim Edgar introduced their plan without giving him notice.

"If they want to give me the responsibility, I'll take the responsibility," Daley said of the plan that would, among other things, replace the current school board and School Finance Commission with a five-member board appointed by Daley.

"But," he added, "no one's going to handcuff me and say, `This is the way you're going to do it. You can't have any input.' "

State Senate Minority Leader Emil Jones (D-Chicago), however, suggested the mayor reconsider his visit to Springfield because it appeared to Jones that Daley has little choice but to take what's handed to him by the GOP.

"They can pass anything they want," Jones said Friday at a taping of the WBBM-AM program "At Issue," which airs 9:30 a.m. Sunday. "So therefore, it's 99 percent the way they want it already, so why even meet? I don't know why the mayor would waste his time to meet with these individuals."

Meanwhile, Chicago Teachers Union President Thomas Reece railed against the GOP plan Friday, saying at a news conference that GOP leaders insulted CTU members and all Chicago leaders by bypassing them in crafting the plan.

"If you don't live here and you never go into the city schools and you don't work in them, it's easy to make decisions like this," Reece said.

He called the plan, which would ban the CTU from striking for 18 months, a payback for the union's longtime alliance with Rep. Michael Madigan, a Southwest Side Chicagoan who ran the Illinois House with an iron hand when Democrats controlled it.

"The adults are setting a bad example for the kids," Reece said.

He said the union would likely launch a court fight against the strike ban, on the ground that its singling out of the Chicago Teachers Union is unconstitutional.

Reece also criticized other aspects of the plan.

Regarding its intention to give principals more power to hire and fire teachers, he said: "What you'll get is uncles and cousins and aunts who need jobs getting jobs. . . . When you give that kind of power to one person, it's going to get abused."

While appearing with U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala at a North Side health clinic, Daley labeled as unnecessary or excessive the plan's creation of an accountability council, which would be a watchdog for academically deficient schools and its installation of a five-person management team, which would be hired by Daley's new board appointees.

"I don't need people coming in to tell me this school has a problem," Daley said of the accountability council. "This school has had a problem for 5, 10 or 15 years. They don't have to tell me that."

Daley also said he would like to see the management team pared to three from five in order to "save the taxpayers money."